Try Our Seville Orange Mmmarmalade!

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What makes our Seville Orange Marmalade quite possibly the best marmalade you’ll ever have? First, the fact that my mother-in-law taught me how to make it, who in turn learned to make it from her mother. This proves that my gran’s recipe is tried, tested and delicious! Yet, what truly makes our marmalade taste great, is the hand shredding, top quality ingredients and that we take no shortcuts. 

If that doesn’t convince you, my marmalade won a Bronze at the World Marmalade Awards (hosted in Cumbria, UK) and you will find it at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in November.

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Why you’ll love it

Our marmalade is made from certified organic Seville oranges and they make all the difference. Aside from the health benefits, organic oranges have a better flavour as they have a slightly chunky peel so you get the sweet and the bitter combined, and set more quickly than non-organic oranges – leading to a better quality marmalade.  

The fresher your oranges are when you make your marmalade the better. Over ripe fruit tend to lose some of their pectin so you will have to cook your marmalade down too far in order to achieve set. Seville oranges are generally in season from January to February, so we spend a bit of time creating our marmalade then to ensure the best quality marmalade is produced.

The Process

We make our marmalade the traditional way, with the peel of the orange being hand shredded. If you are looking to enter your marmalade into competitions, you always want to follow the two-day process.  You will end up with a brighter marmalade that is more appealing from an appearance perspective for the judges, trust me as for the past two years I have had the pleasure of being a judge at the Mad for Marmalade Awards at Fort York.

Our marmalade uses all the parts of the orange. The skin is shredded and softened in water, the membrane and the seeds are added to the marmalade to release the natural pectin of the oranges and achieve the perfect set for the marmalade.

Orange You Glad You Tried It

While we believe there’s absolutely no wrong way to eat marmalade (straight from the jar?), we have a few suggestions for you to try out. Our marmalade tastes fabulous as a cheesecake topping and tastes equally as amazing on toast combined with a splash of butter.  Let your taste buds decide.

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Written by Farhana Choudry, Intern

How to choose the right marmalade recipe for you?

There are seemingly countless ways to prepare seville orange marmalade and with the right group of people, this topic could lead to a rather long and heated debate. Some of it comes down to personal preference - do you like a fine, medium or chunky peel, would you prefer a low sugar jam if it means compromising the perfect set? But some of it also comes down to science and what constitutes a perfect marmalade.

Here are some things to consider when looking for the perfect marmalade recipe for you.

1) Choosing your Seville Oranges

If you are lucky enough to live in an area where you can actually choose your Seville Oranges, consider yourself lucky ;). In previous years, I have been lucky enough to get my hands on organic sevilles and have noticed a couple of difference when using them to make marmalade. So if you are wondering if there are benefits to going organic over and above health benefits - there are! They definitely have better flavour and they set more quickly than non-organic. Overall leading to a higher quality marmalade.

The fresher they are when you make your marmalade the better. Over ripe fruit tend to lose some of their pectin so you will have to cook your marmalade down too far in order to achieve set if your oranges are old.

And you may not know this but Sevilles come in several sizes if you are buying them in bulk, this is a good thing to know. In Canada you can get 88, 72 or 56's. The smallest are the 88's and the largest the 56's. If you are following a recipe it is always a good idea to use one that goes by weight and not number of oranges as this can lead to varying results.

2) Preparing your peel

There are so many different ways to prepare your peel and this is truly where personal taste comes into play. If you prefer a less bitter marmalade you can peel the skin off like would would an apple, getting as little of the pith as possible and shred it super fine or you can leave it nice and chunky. Just keep in mind the chunkier the peel, the darker your marmalade will end up as it will take longer to soften it. If you find a recipe you like the sounds of but want to alter how you prepare your peel, just keep in mind it may affect how long you need to cook it in order to soften the peel.

3) Soaking the peels overnight

Recipes vary and you will find as you comb through them, that some suggest you prepare your peels one day, soak them overnight and cook the marmalade on Day 2, while others have you do it all in one day. How do you know which is the better option?

For me it is a simple answer. If you are looking to enter your marmalade into competitions you always want to follow the 2 day process. You will end up with a brighter marmalade that is more appealing from an appearance perspective for the judges. I also find, that when you split the tasks over 2 days it is a lighter workload on each day.

But if you are pressed for time and you only have the one day available in your calendar to make marmalade, don't worry about it. You will still end up with a lovely tasting marmalade if you do it all in one day.

4) Open pan vs lidded pan  

Yes, recipes will vary on what type of pan you should be making your marmalade in. Some swear by the preserving pan, which is generally not lidded, has outwardly tapered edges and is quite often made of copper. While others will swear by using a pot with a lid.

Why the difference in opinions and which route should you go? I have made marmalade both ways. With the open pan, (especially if it is copper just remember to not use it until you have added sugar to the mixture. Use a different pot to soften the peels) you will notice a high bitter note to your marmalade. You may also notice that the liquid in your marmalade evaporates more quickly and you end up with a higher concentration of peel to liquid ratio when jarring. With the open pan method your peels also may lean towards a chewier consistency.

The lidded pan obviously contains the evaporation which means it will not reduce as quickly. You will have a less bitter flavour and a lower ratio of peel to liquid when jarring.

5) How much sugar should the recipe have?

There are wide swings in the amount of sugar stated in recipes that I have tried over the years. If you want a marmalade lower in sugar you will have to keep in mind that your marmalade will not achieve a proper set and will be softer in consistency. It will also have a shorter shelf life which means it most likely will not last you til next marmalade season. 

6) Testing for set

I am not going to go into the details of how each of these tests are performed in this post. I am just going to give my opinions on which method I think works best when making marmalade. You can use the plate test, a thermometer r

Personally, I prefer the spoon test. This gives me the closest relationship with the marmalade. This may sound strange, but I think this is important. When I can see the consistency of the marmalade beginning to change and I think I am getting close to set, I dip my spoon in every 5 minutes or so and check on how the drops are falling off the spoon. I find this visual way of checking gives me the ability to achieve the set I prefer.

Trusted marmalade recipes I have used in the past with great success:

Lower sugar - Nigel Slater shares his marmalade recipe which is lower on the sugar side which leads to the softer set and shorter shelf life I mentioned earlier

Smaller batch - Vivien Lloyd shares her small batch marmalade recipe. This recipe leaves you with a bright marmalade with a perfect set

One day marmalade - Canadian Living provides a recipe for those that want to get it all done in one day

Marmalade, glorious marmalade!

Shredded Seville Orange Peel

I am admittedly a bit of a marmalade lover. And while, I love meyer lemons, blood oranges and the like, my one true love is the Seville Orange. I can get well and truly absorbed by the process of making marmalade. It is not something one does quickly. There is a process, a cadence to making a truly wonderful marmalade and I get excited in January as marmalade season approaches. I sharpen my knives, get my cheese cloth ready and sit and wait til I hear from my suppliers that Sevilles have arrived. 

And then me and my team all get into the marmalade rhythm. We embrace the blisters one gets from hand shredding the peel and we bask in the citrus smell coming from the kettles as it takes it's time to simmer down to perfection.

Seville Oranges have ARRIVED. I have seen them on the shelves is stores across the city ranging in price from $2.49/lb to $2.99/lb up from last years price of $1.99/lb. If you want to make lots of marmalade consider asking the produce manager at your local store to bring it in by the case. The lovely produce manager at my local Coppa's is more than happy to do it. Currently a case is $75/box.

Here are some wonderful marmalade recipes (not all made with Seville's in case you don't share my love) to get you started.

Lime Cilantro Marmalade - this recipe was created for an entry into Mad for Marmalade. It ended up winning a 2nd place ribbon. I love this marmalade with fish tacos. It has a nice bright citrus flavour that compliments fish very well. P.S. I am judging the competition this year, so if you come be sure to say hi!

Seville Orange Marmalade - If Christine Ferber is the 'Queen of Jam', then the title of 'Queen of Marmalade' goes to Vivien Lloyd. She is passionate about marmalade and shares my same adoration for the Seville as I do. This is a great recipe which gives you a clear, beautiful marmalade flavour as a result

Blood Orange and Vanilla Marmalade - If you missed it Amy launched a preserving cookbook earlier this year called The Canning Kitchen. It focuses on simple and small batch.